Ex-State Democratic Chairman Is Arrested on Cocaine Charges

By MELODY PETERSEN

Published: January 6, 1997

A former chairman of New Jersey's Democratic Party was arrested over the weekend after the police said they found cocaine and four crack pipes in his Bayonne, N.J., motel room.

Raymond M. Durkin, 60, was charged with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia and with being under the influence of cocaine, said Sgt. Robert Toomey of the Bayonne Police Department. Mr. Durkin was released after paying bail of $250, the sergeant said.

Mr. Durkin, who lives in the genteel Newark suburb of Maplewood, headed the state Democratic Party from 1985 to 1990, helping shape election strategies and raising money. He made friends with many New Jersey politicians, including Mayor Sharpe James of Newark and Peter Shapiro, the former Essex County Executive who ran for governor in 1985.

Mr. Durkin did not return two telephone calls to his home seeking comment yesterday.

Donald Tucker, a Newark City Councilman, said that Mr. Durkin, who was also chairman of Essex County's Democratic Committee, had not been active in politics since 1992, when he was unseated as county chairman by Thomas D'Alessio, a former Essex County Executive who was convicted of extortion in 1994.

''He kind of dropped out of sight,'' Mr. Tucker said. ''I know he had personal problems.'' But Mr. Tucker declined to say more.

Sergeant Toomey said that the police had staked out Mr. Durkin's room at the Hudson Plaza Motel on Route 440 in Bayonne late Friday night after they had been told by an informer that he would soon be leaving his room to buy cocaine.

When Mr. Durkin drove back into the motel parking lot, officers asked him to unlock his room. In a desk drawer, the police found the crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia, they said. They also found a small amount of cocaine in a plastic bag, the sergeant said.

Sergeant Toomey said that when the police questioned Mr. Durkin, he admitted having smoked crack cocaine earlier that night.